


The Nightmare

by Stormrace



Category: Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons)
Genre: Evil Justice League, Flash's Worst Case Scenario, Gen, Mind Manipulation, Minor Violence, Worried Justice League
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-10-28 10:50:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 6,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10829754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormrace/pseuds/Stormrace
Summary: Gorilla Grodd was just a little too smug the last time Flash had fought him, especially when he had been losing. Badly. Flash, however, decides to think nothing of it, even as it seems her mind is starting to play tricks on her. Could she have made a bigger mistake? Probably not. Now, she has to live out one of her worst fears.





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Flash, are you all right?" Hawkgirl interrupted the meeting of the original seven to draw attention to the pale, sweating speedster. Flash didn't seem to hear the question or even notice everyone else looking at her, so absorbed in staring at the wall behind Wonder Woman. She was breathing heavily and was shaking visibly, almost as if she was in a state of panic. Hawkgirl reached out to touch her, to which she responded by letting out a startled yelp and falling right off of her chair and landing sprawled on the floor. Rather than calm down after the scare, she curled up where she was, started rocking back and forth, and she began to hyperventilate.

"Flash? What's wrong? Flash?" everyone stood to go to her, but she scrambled back at their movements with motions clearly indicating she did not want them anywhere near her. After standing stock still and being at a complete loss as to what to do, Batman finally regained his senses and herded everyone out of the room, hoping that giving Flash some space would help with the sudden panic and anxiety.

"J'onn," he turned to the martian, "Read her mind."

J'onn nodded and closed his eyes to concentrate. His face creased into a scowl , and then he let out a startled gasp while stumbling back. It took him a few moments to regain his composure.

"I could not get through to her," he said after a moment, "I could feel her terror, but her mind slipped away from me before I could reach her."

"Any idea what is wrong?"

"I do not know. I will keep trying to reach her."

Batman nodded, but had already decided not to wait for the martian's method to work. He took out a sedative and loaded it into his dart gun, before turning to the door. Superman placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him, his face worried and grim. The rest of the Justice League looked just as worried as their leader, and eyed the gunlike device in his hand warily.

"What is that?" Superman asked.

"After Flash's first major injury, where she nearly died from the pain alone, I developed a sedative to compensate for how fast her metabolism burns through everything. I haven't been able to test it yet, but I think you all will be able to agree that she cannot remain in that state for an extended period of time. J'onn has already failed to get through to her once, we cannot stake her life on mental communication."

"But we can risk giving her a sedative that you have never tested before?" Hawkgirl crossed her arms.

"Her life is at risk either way. Whether you agree or not, I am not going to let her die while we sit here going over the risks!"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The sudden visions had started just as blurs of colour around her vision and low whispers in her ears, soon after her last encounter with Grodd. She'd had a feeling that his last act as a fully functioning super-intelligent ape had been to mess with something in her mind, but she foolishly thought that it wouldn't amount to anything. They were just a little annoying, really, and not something that made it impossible to do either of her jobs, so she kept quiet about it to everyone. She hardly noticed them getting more and more clear over the course of the next few weeks, and had no idea she was beginning to see things that were not even there. Small, little things, but they were real to her, nonetheless.

In the meeting between the seven original members, she did not notice herself leaving reality behind and entering a terrifying world of her worst fears. They were all discussing Lex Luthor's campaign for presidency and rising popularity, even with Superman's touchiness about the subject, when Hawkgirl made an off-hand comment on how it seemed that the only way to keep Luthor down would be to kill him. Wonder Woman surprised the speedster by agreeing with great seriousness.

"We all know what he is going to do if he makes it to presidency," she said, "We all saw it on the alternate earth with the Justice Lords. Wouldn't it be best to do something before it gets to that point?"

"Whoa," Flash jumped in, "That's dark, even for you, Diana. And, speaking of the Justice Lords, things got so out of hand over there because Supes," ahem "took care of Luthor. Whatever goes on, we can't stoop down to the level of killers. Right Bats?"

"As I recall, from looking through my doppelganger's files, it all started with Luthor killing their Flash on the same day he was sworn in. With how things are going now, I believe that it may be wise to take measures to ensure that the circumstances that lead to that day are not able to happen."

"Aw, come on!" Flash stared in disbelief, having thought that, out of everyone, Batman would be on her side of things, "J'onn, John, Shayera? Please tell me you have all haven't lost your minds," asking Superoman would be pointless, she already knew how he stood on the subject.

"On my planet, we always take out threats before they become too strong to handle," Shayera said.

"I don't like the idea of killing anybody, but I think I could make an exception for Luther," John stated.

"I'm afraid I must agree with the others, Wanda," J'onn said, almost apologetically, "Luthor is a threat that will not go away, unless we do something."

"Were you all brainwashed last night? We just had this same conversation last week, and you all were saying something very different!"

"We all felt a little different last week," Superman crossed his arms, "Before he officially announced his intentions to run for president."

"We can't even contemplate killing Luthor! Whatever we do, that is a dark path we cannot come back from and shouldn't even be looking at as an option!"

"Flash, you, out of all of us, should be able to see why we need to eliminate Luthor," Superman finally chipped in his two bits.

"Why? Because there is the slightest of possibilities that I might die if he's elected? Hello, did you miss the fact that I run into burning buildings, I grab people out of the way of flying cars and I stop bank robberies on a weekly basis? I can't believe what I'm hearing!" she held her forehead in her hand for a moment, "I need a moment. I'll be back."

Flash stood up and sped to one of the bathrooms, trying to convince herself that she was not going to be sick from simply thinking of what they had suggested. As it turned out, trying to convince herself was completely useless, and it seemed like forever had passed when she finally left the stall. She ignored them, splashing water on her face and breathing deeply. Conversations like the one that had just taken place was something from the nightmares that had plagued her since travelling to that alternate earth. Panic was welling up inside of her at the thought of where the words may lead. No matter what happened to her, she was not going to let that happen.

"Get a grip, Wanda," she looked in the mirror, her mask pushed back from her face, and tried to gather herself, "You can do this. You may not be the brightest light in the galaxy, but you aren't the dimmest either. And you can do this. Get back in there and knock sense into their thick skulls!"

With her resolve strengthened and her confidence bolstered, just a little, she ran as fast as she could back to the meeting, hoping that she could manage to persuade them back to their senses. She did not get the chance to say a single word before Superman told her of exactly what had happened while she had gone off to be sick.

"Luthor, whether he becomes president or not, is too dangerous to be allowed to continue on making up schemes for himself. We all have decided that we are going to eliminate him as a threat, whether you are with us or not."

Looking at their faces, Flash realized that she had no chance of changing their minds, and the only way to avoid this spiral was to prevent them from going through with this. So, without another word to them, she turned, and began to run to the hangers. She had to get to earth, and she had to, no matter how much she detested him, save Lex Luthor.

When she reached the doors, she found them to be locked. When she tried to unlock them, she was denied access, even with her emergency codes. And then, she noticed a few heroes begin trying to subtly surround her. She punched the door in frustration, knowing she was not going to get off of the Watchtower now, and then started thinking of plans to evade them as she, again, took off. She wasn't getting away, but she wasn't going to make it easy for them to catch her. She knew the Watchtower almost as good as her own apartment, knew the best hiding places, but she remained wary that Batman also knew it just as well, if not even better.

She did not evade them ten minutes before she was caught.

She felt someone grab her shoulder and immediately freaked out, tripped over her own two feet, and hit the ground hard. Turning around, she saw them all, their faces grim and without sympathy, advancing on her. She tried to move to get away, but Superman used his heat-vision to injure both of her legs so she was completely crippled.

"No!" she shook her head, her panic overwhelming her and tears coming to her eyes, "Please no. Don't do it, please. No!"


	3. Chapter 3

Flash had escalated to sobbing and repeating the word, "no", over and over again, while gasping for breath and rocking back and forth. Her eyes were unseeing as she rocked back and forth, indicating she was not mentally there. Batman would never answer if anyone ever asked him what he had felt to see such a strong and and integral part of his team in such a pitiful state. The truth was, no matter how he constantly showed himself indifferent, he viewed her with the greatest respect he could have for a fellow hero, and he even often viewed her as something akin to a little sister or niece. Losing her would be a level of devastating he never wanted to face, so he was going to do what he could for her now.

"Flash?" he crouched, trying to look a little less threatening, "Flash, can you here me?"

"No, no, no, no, no..." her hysterical begging continued without pause, she had not even heard him. He risked moving right up to her, being as careful as if she were a frightened animal, and waved his hand in front of her face. She did not respond at all. He touched her, she began to scream and thrash around, trying to fight him. It became very necessary for him to physically restrain her, and then introduced the sedative into her bloodstream. Her fighting became weak, until it stopped, but she did not go fully unconscious and continued to repeat that single word.

"It's going to be all right, Flash," he cradled her close, making his promise, "Whatever it is, we'll figure it out and get you back. Just hold on."

He lifted her up and carried her to the medbay, the rest of the team following and assuring the rest of the League that Flash was simply a little undernourished and was being seen to. Most did not fully believe it, but did not press the issue, not wanting to deal with the senior members when they got annoyed. They would simply wait to hear the story when the situation was over, even if it was grossly exaggerated beyond truth by Flash in the end.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

She did not know what kind of metal was keeping her in place, where Batman had found it, but she knew that she was bleeding from struggling so hard against the restraints. Her legs were throbbing from the wounds inflicted on her by Superman, and from the added irritation of the friction from her struggles. There was a reason that she tried not to run when her legs were injured, her legs being the slowest part of her body to heal, especially if she did not give them a rest. And in the last seven hours, they had only gotten worse, staining her already scarlet outfit into a deeper shade of red.

She had thought that she knew how to get out of the holding cells, finding plenty off opportunities to learn the ins and outs of the incarceration units while bored on watch duty, but, it appeared, the others had been planning for this situation for quite awhile, as nothing she did worked to get out of her situation. She couldn't even scream loud enough for her guards to hear through the glass of the cell.

Finally, exhausted and in too much pain to continue fighting, she slumped against the wall and, unknowingly, she began to vibrate. It was an old habit she had developed when she had first gotten her powers and was still working out the whole hero thing. Whenever she had been in a situation where she did not know for certain she would get out of alive, she had begun vibrating to keep herself from trembling for all the world to see. The more frightened and agitated she was, the more she vibrated.

In this situation, she had never been more frightened in her life, and the frequency of her vibrations began to grow increasingly violent. When she finally became aware of herself, she shook herself and began to slow down. She looked down at her hands and jerked in surprise to see that the restraints had fallen right off! Simply fallen off seemingly without reason!

She wouldn't question the impossible, or waste time figuring out how it happened, she tried every way she knew how to get out, and found one way to succeed.

The guards did not seem to notice her escape, bored out of their minds and not really expecting her, of all people, to cause any trouble. She sighed in relief when that happened, hardly even able to limp down the hallway at such a slow pace as she had not gone for years. It felt like fire searing the skin off of her bone with every step she took, and became twice as bad when she slipped into the ventilation system. She could feel blood oozing from her wounds and leaving behind a trail that anyone could follow.

She mentally kicked herself for not coming this way before, when she first tried to get off of the tower. She knew that Batman had kept one vent in almost every room open, in case of an emergency. Most didn't know about the breaches in the security, it not being a very well guarded secret that was not spoken of by anyone who knew. Flash, of course, knew the vents like that back of her hand and made it to central control without any trouble.

Looking down, however, she suddenly had the feeling that teleporting herself was going to be a very hard with the room full of various heroes. She was going to need something to distract the entire tower from the teleporter for just a few...

"Ouch!" her finger sliced itself on the grate as the Watchtower violently jerked and made her loose her balance. She froze like a statue, waiting for some kind of confirmation that no one had heard her accidental outburst.

"What was that?" she heard someone down below demand.

"An unwelcome guest!" Flash watched as most heroes in the room were assigned to go help take care of the problem, or to secure the tower as much as they could, effectively emptying the room. A few moments more and there was absolutely no one else in the room.

She didn't know where the coordinates would take her, but she didn't think that she had enough time to change them, or even check to see where they would drop her, before she teleported herself down. Down into an office that had been absolutely destroyed, right in front of an armoured Lex Luthor who was looking more than a little worried as Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl were advancing on him. Superman was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, man!" this had to be the worst escape ever! Still bleeding, head swimming from the transportation, and now she was going to have to defend Lex from her former team mates.

To be fair, everyone else looked rather shocked to see her there, and she took full advantage of the near silent moment, grabbing Lex and dashing from the room, as fast as she could. Ignoring the angry calls that followed her, and focusing as hard as she could on anything but the agonizing steps she took. She banked on the fact that she was almost certain that they did not want to injure her any more than she already was, hoping to get Lex wherever he needed to go so he could escape.

"Where's your nearest contingency?" she gasped out, already feeling a burning sensation in her lungs.

"What are you doing?" Lex demanded.

"Trying to save your life! Where do I need to go?"

"Down to the basement."

That information gained, Flash sped up and steeled her determination. She was not going to fail! She wasn't! She couldn't!

"Agh!" everything went white and she did not know what the pain was coming from. Everything suddenly hurt so badly! She couldn't move, pressure in her chest kept her from breathing with ease, she distantly felt someone grab her arms and pin them tightly behind her back.

"Calm down, Flash!" Batman ordered, "Stay still!"

"No! Stop!" her vision began to clear and she could see that Superman was suddenly with the group again, standing over Lex. If she could have moved, she would have been struggling for all she was worth. But she felt utterly paralyzed as she watched Superman's eyes light up red, and witness the last, few grisly moments of life before it was over.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get rid of the horrible image in front of her eyes, but it was like it was burned into the back of her eyelids. Just as clear and just as horrible as if she were still looking at the corpse barely a few feet away from her.

"No!" she quietly sobbed, and repeated the word over and over again. She could hardly breathe now, the pressure and her uneven sobs preventing the adequate amount of oxygen she needed. She vaguely heard voices around her, her name catching her ears a couple of times, and managed a groan of pain when she was turned over and someone probed her ribs.

"Calm down, Flash!" Batman ordered, "Calm down and breathe! Come on! Breathe!"

It felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest, and everything else hurt so badly! How could he expect her to breathe when it felt like she had been hit by a truck? How could he expect her to listen to him after what he had just helped the rest of the team do?

"Are you sure it will work?" Superman's voice was muffled.

"Let's hope..." everything blurred together and words became gibberish.


	5. Chapter 5

Flash had escalated to begging for someone to "stop", "not to do it", and "please no", actually going as far as to attack Batman, and injuring herself so badly that they had to tie her down. She began having trouble with breathing when they discovered that she had, in fact, broken several ribs during her attack on Batman, and one had punctured a lung. It was a fight to give her air again, as she had resumed vibrating and it was nearly impossible to do anything to help, until an even stronger dose of Batman's experimental sedative was administered and she was rendered unable to even lift a finger, and her medical needs were seen to.

Her eyes were completely bloodshot, not having closed once since the meeting, but remained wide open and unblinking in her state of terror and staring off into the distance. Her face was soaked with tears and she kept up constant pleading with unseen tormentors.

J'onn and Batman were constantly by her side, both nearly ready to fall over with exhaustion, and could only wonder at what kind of horrors were plaguing her mind. They had being trying to find a way to breech the mental wall keeping J'onn from getting through to her, yet nothing had seemed to work. Nothing that happened to her body seemed to have any effect on her mind. All J'onn could do was keep on trying to reach her the same way he would anyone else.

____

She was back in the cell, though on a bed this time, and her mind was fogged in a way she had only known once before, and she did not like it. Not in the slightest. She didn't know how they had found a sedative strong enough to cloud her thoughts, but it was horrible. Too slow! Everything was too slow!

"Please, stop," she whimpered, staring up at the blurred image of Batman and J'onn, "Please."

She felt Batman rest a hand on her forehead and brush some bangs from her face, but, for the most part, she was ignored and the two continued on with the conversation she couldn't quite make out. She wanted to reach up and grab them, shake them and make them pay attention to her, demand answers for why they had gone crazy and felt the need to go down such a dark path.

It felt like forever before they stopped speaking over her and J'onn disappeared from her sight. She didn't know if she wanted Batman to leave as well or if she wanted him to stay, keep her mind from thinking of the pain that was almost making her go insane.

"Flash?" Batman's face suddenly became crystal clear, "Flash, can you hear me?”

"Please!" her mind went blank for things to say, so she continued with the plea, hoping her expression would get everything across that she needed to.

"How is she?" she tensed, hearing Superman's voice and feeling panic stir in her chest. No! She didn't want to see him! Didn't want to see the monster she had regarded as friend a mere day ago!

"Calm down, Flash!" Batman ordered, the order sharp, but not harsh, before he turned to face the leader of the Justice League, "The healing is slower than normal, but that is to be expected with the trauma and malnutrition. She'll be a lot better off once she has something more than IV nutrients."

"Good. After all of the trouble we've gone through, she'd better not die."

Flash had no idea if the threat was directed at Batman or herself, but she felt her heartbeat speed up dramatically in fear. The monitor beside her bed began to frantically beep and drew attention. She couldn't believe how all over the place her emotions were.

"I think that you should leave and take care of Metropolis," there was a familiar underlying threat in Batman's voice that Superman, thankfully, heeded.

"Flash!" she jumped, looking to see where J'onn had been standing and wondering why he suddenly decided to enter her mind.

"Wanda, calm down!" her eyes went back to Batman when she couldn't see J'onn anywhere, "You need to sleep. Sleep and recover your strength."

Sleep did not feel like an option. She was exhausted beyond imagination, and desperately wanted to sleep, yet she couldn't. No matter what seemed to happen, she couldn't sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

"If this lasts much longer, Flash is going to die," the statement was true, and everyone knew it. Flash had not eaten or slept since zoning out, and it showed. She looked so frail, so sickly, it was clear that she would not last more than a few more days.

"What more can we do?" Hawkgirl asked, furiously swiping at tears slipping down her face, "We don't know what's wrong! How can we fix it if we don't know what is going on?"

"We can find out," Superman crossed his arms, "Has she mentioned any villains that she recently faced, that could mess with her mind? Anyone at all?"

"I heard that Grodd was somewhat active near Central City a few weeks ago, but the news did not catch much of anything," Green Lantern supplied.

"It's not much, but it's a start," Hawkgirl moved towards the teleporters, "Where is the gorilla?"

"A secret military prison underneath Alcatraz, I believe," they all jumped at the sudden presence of Batman, not having expected him to leave his position beside the speedster's bed, "Just be careful not to give the criminals any chance to get out."

"Will you be all right?" Wonder Woman approached the caped crusader, and looked up at him with concern.

"If you figure out what's going on, we all will be."

The four superheroes left without a word, and hardly spoke as they flew towards the island prison. They found their way to the secret entrance, and slipped inside as subtly as possible. The gorilla, they found, was in a comatose state after his encounter with the Flash, put there by the military to keep him from causing any sort of trouble. There was nothing they could just from him, but they did find a lead that seemed almost too good to be true.

Seven hours later, and on the Watchtower, Batman caught himself dozing again, when four Justice League members crashed into the room like excited children, claiming that they had it! They had the answer!


	7. Chapter 7

"Flash! Listen to me!"J'onn materialized above her. Her foggy mind idly wondered why he had come into the room in his phasing form, but she did not care. She didn't want to listen to whatever he had to say.

"Flash, come back!"

"Flash, what are you looking at?" Oh, wonderful. She was seeing double now. Improvement? No. Sleep. She needed sleep. She wanted sleep. Why couldn't she sleep? Batman said she should sleep, he was normally right about this sort of thing. Yet every time she came to the brink, she would experience just enough pain to bring her back, but not enough to make her pass out.

"Flash, do you remember the colours?" colours? What did colours have to do with anything? When had J'onn gone this insane?

"Batman, Flash's brain activity has spiked," that was a new one. When had they brought a brain monitor into the room? They had a heart monitor, several IVs, but there had not been a brain monitor mere seconds ago, she was certain.

"What?" she tried to say, but her voice cracked from no use and dryness. She looked from the one martian to the other and could have sworn that they were the same person, if not for the slightly darker shade of the one on her right, the one who had called Batman.

"Flash, you began seeing colours that weren't there, and items that no one else could see," she knew the one on the left was the one telepathically speaking to her, just from the way he was concentrating, "You remember the meeting? You drifted away. None of what you see is real. You are hallucinating. It's not real."

"Flash, stay with us," the one on the right ordered, "Don't slip away from reality. Stay."

"Come back, Flash! Come back!" it was a desperate plea.

"I can't!" her voice was no better the second time around, "I don't know!"

She looked from the martian on the right, to the one on the left. She was so confused! Was all of this just a bad dream? Had she fallen asleep during the meeting and this was the result? A nightmare? Or, was she just going mad from all of the stress and trauma? She didn't know!

"Why are there two of you?" she blurted out, really wanting to know why.

"There aren't two of me," J'onn assured her, "I'm the only person, other than you, in this room. You just need sleep. Close your eyes and sleep. Everything will be clear when you wake up."

"Wanda West, please come back to us! Don't let Grodd win!" Grodd! That stupid primate! Messing with her head again?! How could she not have seen it? She was an idiot!

"How? I don't know how!" she tried reaching up to the J'onn on the left, the pain made her breath hitch.

"Just follow," her hand felt warm, solid flesh, and her world shifted.


	8. Chapter 8

After the team had stormed Alcatraz, and then Grodd's study, and came back with an idea of Flash's only chance, J'onn dove straight in and did not move for a day and a night. On the third evening since she had mentally left, she stopped whimpering and pleading, her eyes focused and she blinked. She turned her head and saw J'onn and Batman sitting beside the bed, and the look on her face was far from hope.

"Please don't let it be real," she whispered, and then slipped into sleep. Her vitals improved, and the two that had sat at her bedside through the entire ordeal, left their vigil in the care of Hawkgirl and Green Lantern, so that they could rest. But, just before they parted ways, Batman grabbed J'onn by the arm, looking for answers.

"What was going on in there?"

"It appears someone altered her mind to play out her worst possible fears," J'onn said slowly, "From how strongly it had a hold on her, I would say that it has been working on her for weeks to make certain that she believed whatever reality she saw to be real."

"What did she see?"

"I only caught a glimpse of the reality, and I did not see much more than a cell, so I do not truly know. We will just have to wait for her to speak about it."

Batman nodded his head, and then let the martian go his own way.


	9. Chapter 9

There had been two martians in her head for that one moment, and she prayed that the one she had chosen to listen was right, and the reality of the League turning evil was completely fraudulent and that her real teammates still had no intentions of killing Luthor and locking her up so they could do so. When the world shifted from a cell to a medbay room, the only thing that kept her from fully accepting it as a safe, normal reality were the bindings keeping her down, even with the assurances of the martian that they were only to keep her from hurting herself.

She did not know what she said to them, her thoughts being so weak, and then she completely missed herself slipping off into a dreamless sleep. She completely missed the next ten hours of her team taking turns by her bedside, ready to just be there if she woke up. They rotated entirely, back to J'onn and Batman before she tried to rolled over and woke up because that movement was restricted.

"Can- Can one of you get rid of these things?" her voice was so quiet and hoarse, she hardly recognized it. Batman quickly and silently removed the restraints, and then handed her a glass of water. She whispered her thanks, and then carefully sipped the water until it was gone. Then, she just rolled over and went back to sleep, her body was so exhausted after her trauma, even if it had only been mental.

She did not feel in the mood to talk about what had happened to her for the next two weeks, and she refused to let J'onn see anything in her mind that related to the nightmare reality. She pretended not to notice the subtle probes coming from everyone but J'onn and Batman, though it annoyed her to no end that they were so nosy, and thought up dozens of excuses to not return to the Watchtower once she'd been released with a clean bill of health. Whether it had been real or not, she did not feel safe in those halls any more, and could not stand them fore the time being. For the moment, she just wanted space.


	10. Chapter 10

The two weeks went by in a blur, she did not remember much from those days of her life, before she finally couldn't take keeping it entirely to herself anymore and took the run to Gotham. She couldn't stay silent forever, and, even with the false reality, she still trusted Batman not to tell anyone or treat her differently when he heard the story.

"Bats?" she entered the cave and looked around. He was sitting at the large computer, busily typing away.

"What is it, Flash?"

"If the Justice League were to ever become like the Justice Lords, are there any contingency plans to stop them from taking over the world?"

Batman shut off the computer and turned around to face her, "What happened?"

She swallowed, let out a shuddering breath, and told her story. He listened silently, without his expression changing once, and just let her explain every horrible, terrifying detail at her own pace. She didn't cry once during the telling, but she had a hard time keeping it together long enough to do so. It was all so clear, so fresh in her mind, it was hard not to suspect that Batman would suddenly call Green Lantern or Superman to take her back to the cell on the Watchtower.

"Well?" she was sitting with her back against a crate, her arms hugging her knees. Batman, by this point, was rubbing his chin thoughtfully and leaning back in his chair.

"That sounds grim," he commented.

"Grim is an understatement," Flash sighed, rubbing her forehead, "I know that someone was just messing with my head, but I was living those three days. I felt everything that happened to me, I experienced it like it was really happening. For all intents and purposes, that was real to me, and I am going to remember it as if it really happened for the rest of my life."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Do you think that could really happen to us?" she rested her chin on her knees, "That we could go that far and still try to say we were different from the Lords?"

"I don't know," he admitted, "I don't believe that the Lords turned bad only because of their Flash's death, it is more likely that it was the catalyst, but because of a series of events that simply tore them all apart. Perhaps we are now facing the same thing, perhaps not. I doubt we will know until we reach our breaking point, and, when and if that ever happens, all we can do is keep ourselves in check."

She chuckled, just a bit, "We're talking as if I would still be alive by that point. You think it would be possible for that to happen?"

"Flash, if you have the audacity to die on us, I think there will be more than a few people who will go right after you and drag you back to the world of the living," the humour brought a large grin to Flash's face, a sorely missed sight, and she looked a little less like a kicked puppy, "You'll be around a long time, kid."

Flash beamed, and then was gone in a blur. After their little talk, though goodness truly knows what she had really gotten out of it, she seemed to get better. It took an entire month for her to become completely comfortable around her team, once more, and for her to return to the Watchtower, but, once it happened, it was like it was before. Flash never forgot those three days, but she moved on and decided that they deserved her trust after all the times they had saved her life. She was wary, but she trusted them.

The End.


End file.
